In the past, hexagonal bundles have been made from elongated elements such as round bars, pipes and the like by haphazardly rolling the elements off of collecting skids into hexagon-shaped cradles. This produces a non-uniform distribution of elements requiring the continuous attention of operating personnel, who must manually rearrange the elements in order to properly fill the cradles. This method is extremely noisy and dangerous. Moreover, the elements are often scratched or marked as they are dropped into the cradles.